Dear Sir or Madam,
Will you read my book? It took me years to write, will you take a look? It’s sort of Martin Amis meets Germaine Greer, with a touch of Steve Bruce and a little bit of something lighter; those are my fave writers. It's the dirty story of a dwarf named Keith, he’s got ‘PFC’ engraved on his teeth. His son plays right-back for Leddersford Town, his wife’s a female eunuch and his mate is a bare-knuckle fighter, a right evil blighter. It's ten thousand pages, give or take a few, though I could cut it down if you need me to. The cupcake section could be changed around; and I’ve been told that the chapter where Jase Rooney goes on an all-nighter could be a bit tighter. If you really like it you can have the rights to any spin-off movies or theme park rides. But you must remember I know where you live, and all I need is some petrol and a cigarette lighter, and the World will be Brighter.
Yours et cetera
I think I've just seen the future of publishing. And it's brightly, shiningly beautiful. Mwah ha ha! Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha! Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, aha, aha, aha! Ahem.
ReplyDeleteMy Aged Ps read this blog sometimes. "You never know what you're going to find on Think of England," my mother once said of it, ambiguously.
ReplyDeleteI once found my father reading and enjoyed a blog I used to write and I never told him it was mine. One of the biggest regrets I have in my life.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first manuscripts I was asked to read was accompanied by a letter in spidery writing saying that if the manuscript, a novel, was not accepted for publication there would be a "nuclear incident" at Didcot Power Station. As if that was not bad enough, this would be followed by the coming of the Anti-Christ and something called The Spear of Destiny, apparently the subject of the novel. Books: a funny old game.
ReplyDeleteProse-poetry is the hardest of all literary genres to crack, Mr Brit, but you've done it here!
ReplyDeleteIn a moment of foolishness, I agreed to read a manuscript by an acquaintance - 879 single-spaced pages, set entirely in one room, told in the first person by a cello that was in love with a spinet. I can't understood why the book is not better known.
ReplyDeleteso Mark - you turned down Dan Brown??
ReplyDeleteZMKC - did the cello's love for the spinet symbolise the human condition in some way?
ReplyDeleteAh Leddersford. My heart jumps every time I read the name. Was hoping that the great novelist-manager's footballing slump would go on, this leading him back towards the typer - Steve Barnes, now boss at Bangmingham Rovers having to thwart someone with PFC engraved on their teeth.Magic.
ReplyDeleteMind you, perhaps Bruce/Barnes is just the man to get PFC back in the big time.... Steve Barnes, no-nonsense new manager of Portsampton Wanderers, unafraid to sort out the international corruption behind the club's financial crisis and also to play a 4-2-3-1 formation for the crucial game against local rivals Southamptmouth Rangers...
ReplyDeleteactually, you're right, a roman a clef on Portsmouth could be right up Barnes's street. It's not the smell of rotting cabbage after all. It's the stench of corruption there.
ReplyDeleteIf Bruce is the novelist I think he is, he'll be able to pull JPFCW's antiquarian book trading in somehow, too, maybe in a da vinci code stylee.
It's the reek of financial irregularity.
ReplyDeleteI can defo see the da Vinci angle...
"Something about this book caught my eye. It looked very old, perhaps a hundred years. Maybe more. Books, like much else, are a closed book to me."
You've got him nailed. Maybe we should forge it ourselves. Write the book you'd like to read, they say. Much like Steve Bruce did.
ReplyDelete'...The administrator had just let the two old girls in the office go. Financial necessity, he said. I don't know much about financial necessity, I just know they were crying their hearts out. All over eighty quid a week.I had eighty quid in my pocket. I was planning to get some petrol on the way home that night. 'Take this, my luv,' I said. 'Call it severance pay'. It was better than she'd get from that administrator fella. He's not a football man, see. We're football people. The door to my jag slammed angrily behind me as I roared to the training ground, thoughts of the old girl's tears in my head...'
Uncanny!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that gives it away is that you didn't go into any detail about the technical specifications of the Jag.
You're right. It's a company car though. Barnes always demands that. Written in the contract. SB doesn't want a driver either. Likes to play Chris de Burgh at top volume driving over the pennines.
ReplyDelete